Gallery highlights

Gallery highlights

The Journeys gallery explores the journeys of people to and from Australia and the social, political and economic impacts of those journeys. Here are some of the highlights from the 750 objects on show in the gallery. These objects are from the National Museum's collections, unless otherwise stated.

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Toy pig won by Erin Craig

A family reunited after World War Two

In 1942, during the Second World War, Iris Adams went to a Red Cross dance in Sydney. She met Jim Craig, a master sergeant in the United States Army who was stationed in Australia. Four months later they were married.

Their daughter Erin was born in Sydney in May 1945. Jim Craig returned to the United States at the end of the war and Iris and Erin left Australia to join him.

En route to San Francisco, Erin won a prize in a competition for the child with the reddest hair on the SS Lurline. Her prize was this toy pig, treasured by Erin for 60 years and donated to the National Museum of Australia in 2007.

'Gender barung pelog' from the Gamelan orchestra

Promoting Indonesian independence

In 1926 a Javanese court musician named Pontjopangrawit was imprisoned by the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. He was held at the remote Tanah Merah camp, on the Digul River, in Irian Jaya, now West Papua.

Pontjopangrawit appropriated wood, nails and tins from camp supplies and used them to make a suite of instruments for a gamelan orchestra. It is known as the gamelan Digul, or the orchestra made on the river Digul. The gendèr barung pélog is one of the instruments from this orchestra.

When the Japanese invaded the East Indies in 1942, the Dutch government sent its Tanah Merah prisoners to a camp at Cowra, New South Wales.

Pontjopangrawit's gamelan Digul travelled with the prisoners to Australia. Two years later, the prisoners were released. Many moved to Melbourne and worked towards Indonesian independence. The gamelan's music became an integral part of their campaign.

'Little Red Riding Hood' wall-hanging

An Australian aid worker assists European displaced people

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Australian teacher Valerie Paling travelled to Germany to work for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Her job was to help resettle some of the thousands of people displaced during the war. Paling received the Little Red Riding Hood wall-hanging in thanks for her work at a displaced persons camp near the town of Ulm.

The hanging was created by Olga Basylevich, a Ukrainian refugee, using a United Nations issue blanket and scraps of fabric and fur.

Paling returned to Australia with the wall-hanging. She donated it to the Forest Hill Kindergarten in Melbourne, where it was displayed until 1990.

Carmelo Mirabelli's camera and case

Sicilian-born Carmelo Mirabelli arrived in Sydney on the ship Assimina in 1951, and immediately headed north to cut sugarcane.

He followed seasonal harvests across the country for five years, then settled in Brisbane because its climate reminded him of Sicily. He later moved to Melbourne in search of work.

Mirabelli used this Zeiss Ikon camera to record his experiences as an itinerant worker in Australia during the 1950s. He photographed himself, friends and workers on the sugarcane fields of Queensland and the orchards and vineyards of Victoria.

Migration did not end Mirabelli's connection to Sicily — he sent money to his mother back home and photographs that showed what life was like in Australia.

The Ride family's 'Nomad' brand tractor lawn sprinkler

Watering an English garden in Australia

David and Margaret Ride met and married in Hong Kong and later moved to Oxford, England. In 1957, David was offered the directorship of the Western Australian Museum, and the family, assisted to migrate by the Australian Government, settled in Perth.

The Rides' new home had a garden featuring English favourites like rose bushes, a willow tree and a lovely expanse of lawn, but the Rides didn't understand that to make it flourish they needed to water it!

Eventually the willow tree died, and the family purchased this 'set and forget' tractor sprinkler. The Nomad has a painted metal chassis, cast iron wheels and copper tube sprinkler arms.

Film of the tractor sprinkler at work, evoking the nostalgic sounds of the sprinkler mechanism and water spray in a time before water restrictions, appears in the Australian Journeys gallery.

Tania Verstak's Miss Australia 1961 trophy

Tania Verstak becomes the first migrant to win the Miss Australia Quest

Tania Verstak was born in Tianjin, China to Russian parents who escaped the 1917 Russian revolution. When the Communist Chinese government began pressuring Russians to leave, the Verstaks fled to Australia, arriving in Sydney in 1952, where they settled in Manly.

In 1961 Verstak became the first migrant to be crowned Miss Australia. She also won the United-States based title, Miss International. The Miss Australia Quest ran annually as a fundraiser for the Australian Cerebral Palsy Association.

By the 1960s Australian society was becoming more multicultural. Verstak's win reflected a change in the national image.